Critical Thinking

Finding Patterns

Below activity involve editing existing code, but no prior experience with programming is required. This is an opportunity to experience the process of computational thinking in different subjects, so feel free to try the activities outside of your subject area. Click on an activity below to try it out. Explore, experiment, play, and enjoy.

Troubleshoot: Math Turtle

Challenge: 1

Why not give the turtle a home to sleep in? Continue adding commands to see if you can draw a house like the one below. It's ok if you don't get it the first time, keep trying!

Challenge: 2

Your turtle is so well trained it will even repeat some instructions as long as you tell it which instructions to repeat and how many times. Rewrite the house instructions using the for [a..b] command which tells the turtle what number to start with and what number to end with. This cuts the number of commands for the turtle almost in half!

Example: pen purple
for [1..4]
  #Indented commands
  #are repeated
  rt 90
  fd 100
#These commands are not repeated
rt 30
fd 100
rt 120
fd 100

You can use this information later to develop an algorithm to draw any type of regular polygon.

Arithmetical Challenge

Suppose you and I have the same amount of money. How much must I give you so that you have ten dollars more than I ?

Critical Thinking #1

Critical Thinking #2

Critical Thinking #3

Reading and Interpreting Charts

Model creating a bar graph using the Bar Graph master and the  data used in the pictograph above.

Create a Graph (http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/default.aspx) This website from the National Council of Education Statistics (NCES) is an easy-touse graph generator that students can use to create their own graphs.

Deductive Reasoning:

Problems that ask you to match items with their characteristics. Making a matrix helps you work the problem.

#1 Three people and their pet.

Michael, Sarah and Tina own a cat, a goldfish, and a parakeet. From the clues below, match the pet owner's name with the pets.

• Tina is allergic to a animal fur.
• Michael's pet does not use kitty litter or live in a cage.

#2 Match the grade

Onju, Pedro, and Richard are all in different grades at school. The children are either in the third, fourth, or fifth grade. From the clues below, match the children with their grade.

• Pedro and Onju are not in the third grade.
• Onju is in a higher grade than Pedro.

Onju is in __________ grade. Pedro is in _________ grade. Richard is in _________ grade.

#3 Match the grade

Bob, Chris, Nancy, and Pat have different colored bikes. The bikes are red, blue, green, and white. From the clues below, match the bikes with the owners.

1.  Bob and Chris have ten-speed bikes.
2. Chris's friend has a blue bike.
3. Nancy has a three-speed and is a friend of the owner of the white bike.
4. Nancy sometimes rides her brother's blue ten-speed bike.
5. Pat does not like his friend's green bike.
6. The red bike has one speed.

Thinking Problem:

Traveling Longititude and Latitude

Problem: You and your family are planning a road trip through all of the capitals in the region and you have the job of figuring out the shortest route possible to save on the cost of fuel. 

You will need: Notebook and a Pencil

Task 1 : Click on the link  the Road trip plan 

Task 2:  Now think about how would you explain the route you suggest your family to take?

Task 3: Will you provide a list of cities or is there a guiding principle like start at the west and follow it to the east?

Task 4: Does it matter which city you start from?

This type of problem is traditionally known as the traveling salesperson problem, where the challenge is to go through each city only once and return to the city of origin.

Thinking Problem:

Words Over Time

Problem: Suppose you want to know how the word Robot has been used throughout the years in different cultures. It might be fair to assume that books are representative of what is important or interesting to a culture, but how long would it take you to count how many times the word Robot occurs in a book or even a large number of books? Google's ngram viewer (embedded below) visually displays the occurrences of a word, or phrase (ngrams) for many of the books Google has scanned.

You will need: Notebook and a Pencil

Task 1 : Enter the phrase "Robot" in the Google Books Ngram Viewer.

Challenge: Right click on the years to see in which book was the word mentioned.

Task 2:  Try changing the word Robot in the search bar below to another word.

Task 3: Which words show an increase or decrease over time?

Task 4: Was there a word that caused a large spike in the graph?

Share and present the information to your friends.